


Five Times Lovers Were Parted (and one time they were reunited)

by zinjadu



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age II, Dragon Age: Inquisition, Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, Death, F/M, Grief/Mourning, Loss, Madness, Reunions, back from the dead
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-08
Updated: 2018-08-08
Packaged: 2019-06-23 21:29:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,208
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15615438
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zinjadu/pseuds/zinjadu
Summary: Two of my characters, Caitwyn Tabris and Aurelia Trevelyan (and their boyfriends) lived through the events of their stories.  Marian Hawke did not.  Alternate takes on what if those who lived died, and if the one who died managed to live.





	Five Times Lovers Were Parted (and one time they were reunited)

_1\. All he could not_

Alistair ran.

She had left him behind, thinking he would obey the order.  One look, and Sten had sneered at him for leaving his post. But that didn’t matter.   _She_ mattered.  He ran, following her trail through Denerim.  It was easy, the darkspawn bodies strewn about, arrows, _her_ arrows feathering their heads shouting that Caitwyn had come this way.

He climbed the tower, the tower they had broken out of together.  The place where she had first said _I love you_ while looking directly at him.  He had teased her mercilessly for that.  There was nothing funny about it now. Then the tower shook, and he hit the wall hard, jarring his shoulder.  But he couldn’t stop, not for anything.

But it was too late.  Wynne saw him first, and she blanched, hand held to her mouth in horror.  Zevran tried to hold him back, but the assassin was not nearly strong enough.  Shale was the only one who did anything reasonable, lifting that small body, so _small_ , out of the ruin of the Archdeamon.  The golem, who had never been one for anything like emotions, nevertheless gently laid Caitwyn’s still form in his arms.

Sinking to the floor like her body was an anchor, he held her close, his hands running over her hair, tracing the lines of her face, half expecting her eyes to flutter open, eyes as glorious and green as the heart of a forest.  But she remained still. Still and cold, and his heart stopped because there was nothing left. Being a Warden had seemed like a dream come true, a way out of the life he had hated, and now it only left him with ashes and dust.

And he cried, he screamed.  Hollow words would ring in his ears, at the top of the tower, at her funeral, laid to rest in unrivaled glory, words from their friends, from her family, her father: _you did all you could._

But he hadn’t, and she had paid the price of his unwillingness.

 

* * *

_2\. Heavy is the head_

“… and they knew they would have to go down to the Deep Roads, but they did not know what they would face,” he intoned, and then laid the ribbon between the pages and closed the book.  “Alright, sweat-pea, that’s it for tonight.”

“Aw, Papa, one more chapter, please?” Catherine wheedled, not holding back in the slightest as she turned her big brown eyes on him.  He kissed her forehead and chuckled.

“No. Princess, you may be, but you still need your sleep,” he admonished her, and she pouted for a moment before flopping down.  Gently, he tucked her in, making sure she had all her stuffies, including the little griffon she had asked for.

“G’night, Papa,” she said drowsily, already halfway to sleep.

“Good night, love,” he said quietly, and shut the door nursery door behind him.  He maintained his kingly bearing as he walked the corridors of the palace, but he let out a sigh of relief when he reached his study.  It was the one place that was truly _his_ in this whole blasted place.  He had gotten used to much over the years, but there was one thing that would never get any easier.

Opening the top left drawer, he unlocked a hidden compartment, one Leliana and Zevran had thoughtfully installed for him, and there were the remnants of the only woman he had ever loved, debris of the year of his life that had been so full of terror and unexpected joy.  A joy he had not felt until his daughter had been born.

With a weary heart, he removed the locket, the one he had commissioned through several layers of buyers.  The one with a small portrait set inside of it, and he debated opening it. He hadn’t opened it in years, but something about getting to the Deep Roads part of the story compelled him in a way few things had in recent memory.  Depressing the latch the locket popped open, and there she was. Forever nineteen, her green eyes bright, and the smile on her face was one only he had ever seen.

“I still miss you, Cait,” he told her picture.  Then, with a shuddering breath, he closed it and replaced it, putting the drawer back to rights.  Bracing his hands on the desk, he struggled to control himself, and he wiped away the tears that had gathered in his eyes.

It wouldn’t do to return to his queen like this.

 

* * *

 

 

_3\. Turned to stone_

Caitwyn died as she watched, unable to stop Alistair as he killed the Archdeamon.  Her body persisted, but _she_ died.  Her eyes shut against the light, a reflex, nothing more.  When the light cleared, the darkspawn were fleeing, but she walked forward, face a perfect mask.

“Cait,” Zevran spoke, but she did not hear him.  He touched a hand to her shoulder, and she wrenched his hand back, forcing him to his knees.  She was ice as she looked at the assassin, and then moved on. She said nothing, the was nothing to say.

His body was burned, scarred, his armor shattered, and the Archdeamon rotted around him.  Heedless of the stench and the viscera, she knelt next to him and closed his eyes. Those beautiful hazel eyes that had looked at her with so much love.  The love was gone now, and there was no getting it back.

* ~ * ~ *

Caitwyn held a knife to Queen Anora’s throat in the dark of the royal bedroom.

“You wouldn’t dare,” the woman threatened, and Caitwyn merely stared at her, no expression on her face.  She did not feel any anger for the violent suppression of the food riots, only the vestiges of a duty to her family.

“What, exactly, makes you think your position means anything to me?” Caitwyn asked, voice as dead as her heart.  As dead as the best man she had ever known. Anora’s blue eyes went wide as she finally understood what, not who, stood over her.  “Never again. Say it.”

“Never again,” the queen choked out, and Caitwyn withdrew her knife, leaving a very deliberate cut along that perfect white neck.  To remember her by. Then like a shadow, Caitwyn was gone, just another monster in the dark.

* ~ * ~ *

Tracking Morrigan had not been easy, but she had managed it.  Caitwyn had counted Morrigan a dear friend once. Once they had been as close as sisters.  But then it had all gone wrong. And now Cait had only one drive. Only one purpose. To put an end to them both.

“My friend,” Morrigan said as she stood, and then realized what was standing in front of her.  Quickly, Morrigan drew on her magic and did something to the mirror behind her, but Caitwyn was faster and fired an arrow through Morrigan’s hand, pinning it to the wooden frame around the silvery, shifting glass.

Closing the distance between them, Caitwyn drew a knife, and Morrigan gathered fire in her hand and bared her teeth in a sudden rage.  Without a cry of warning or a flinch to betray her, Caitwyn dove for the woman, sinking her knife into her belly, even as Morrigan let loose with the fire.

“Die, witch,” Caitwyn snarled, and they both fell through the mirror.  Caitwyn hoped that meant it was finally over.

 

* * *

 

 

_4\. Hurt for hurt_

They were trying to hold him back, his own men, and Cullen checked them both with his shoulders, sending the men staggering.  Word had come through that the Eluvian in the store room was acting up, and he had to get to her, he had to get to Aurelia. He should never have stayed behind, his position as Commander or no.  By her side was here he should have always been.

Watching the mirror with anxious eyes, he paced the small store room, and then straightened when it began to shimmer.  First was Cole, and the boy made straight for Cullen, pressing a hand to Cullen’s chest, right over his heart, but Cullen moved past the boy when Bull appeared, Aurelia in his arms.  Without waiting, Cullen was at his wife’s side, but then all the little details caught up with him. Bull not looking him in the eye, how pale Aurelia’s face was, the blood, the blood everywhere.

“Cullen,” Dorian said quietly, gently.  “Cullen, she wanted you to know…”

“Don’t,” he managed to say past his strangled throat.  “Please. Don’t.” Cullen took her from Bull, headless of the blood that dripped from the ruin of her arm, and it was wrong, so wrong to see her like this.  She had always moved with grace, poise, a dancer even when she stood still, and she had never been still. Always moving, always bright, blue eyes with the lighting in them, closed forever.

“Who?” he growled, looking up at Bull, feeling that old anger coming back, that old rage, the violence so close to hand.

“Solas,” Bull bit out, a dragon’s rage barely held back at the name.

Cullen hissed out a breath, wondering how he missed it.  He should have seen it, should have looked closer at the apostate in their midst.  There from the beginning, watching, waiting, had Solas been laughing, sneering at them the whole time?  Had he known it would come to this, her death? Had he only saved her to kill her?

It was too much, too much, but then there was a hand on his arm.  Cole, and the pain and horror and madness receded, replaced by a crystal clarity of what had to be done.

“Yes, he will hurt for this,” Cole said, blue eyes as sharp as steel.

“Yes, yes he will,” Cullen said, voice a strangled, ragged thing, knowing it would be the only comfort he would ever have.

 

* * *

 

 

_5\. Artefacts of the lost_

Aurelia held the helm in her hands, blood running from the lion’s eyes, _Cullen’s_ blood, dried and flaking off.  Soon that too would be gone, and the helm might be cleaned, could be made to look as if a man had not died inside of it.  Died fighting, she knew. Died for his men, died for what he thought was right.

Died for her.

Running her fingers over the metal, she found nicks and cuts that told the tale of fights won, fights he had lived through, and the one fight he had not.  He fought with a roar, loud and at the front, but he had loved quietly, deeply.

A sob built in her chest, and she let it free, a heavy, wracking sob that made her bend double over the helm.  Her tears fell on the helm, mixing with his blood, salt tears, salt blood, mixing together and running over the metal.  The metal that held a charge as the lightning built along her body, unrestrained, unchecked, and it flared, arcing from her body as she screamed, as if she could defy death itself with her voice, with her sheer willpower, but that was not possible.

And the helm shattered.

Her barrier sprang to life, spirits from the Fade circling her, protecting her from the shrapnel, and her sense of them, normally friendly, helpful, held an edge of fear, of worry, but she could only stare as she lost another piece of him.  Another link to him lost forever. How soon, she wondered, until he was gone completely? Until there was nothing of him left in the world?

That was a world she could not bear to see.

 

* * *

 

 

_+1. Set free, returned_

Varric pushed the door open with one trembling hand and stepped into a room he thought he’d never set foot in again.  Bethany turned to face him from her spot on the canopied bed, her sunny face all teary, elated smiles, but Varric had only eyes for the haggard, battered woman lying prone and bandaged.   Half-starved and nearly broken, Marian Hawke’s eyes were still the same unbelievable blue, and her blade-sharp grin had not dulled in the slightest.

“Hawke,” he breathed as he stumbled towards her like an object falling to the earth, draw on by an invisible pull.  He barely noticed Bethany standing to make room for him.

“Hey Varric,” she croaked.  Her voice was raw and thready, but she held her hand out for him and he took it, pressing her palm to his face.  Weakly, she scratched at his stubble, and they drank in the sight of each other. He had a million questions: how, why, when, but for the moment there was only one thing that mattered.

“You came back.”  A ragged, unbelieving whisper, a prayer he’d never said because he hadn’t dared hope it would come true.

“Had to find out how it ended,” she said with a weak laugh.  That was so damned _Hawke_ of her that Varric couldn’t help but laugh, a mad, wild, rumbling laugh that broke from him like a cliff falling into the sea.  She had flown away, into the sun and out of reach, but for reasons known only to the Maker, Marian Hawke had come home.

She had come home to him, and he finally knew how the story ended.  For once, they might actually live happily ever after.


End file.
